


The Orange Blossom Bride

by ExpatGirl



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 11, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Case Fic, First Kiss, Florida, Gambling, Ghosts, Hannah Lives, M/M, POV Dean Winchester, Pining, Post-Mark of Cain, Post-Season/Series 10, Sam Knows, Swearing, The Darkness - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 22:02:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5514908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExpatGirl/pseuds/ExpatGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a simple salt and burn, even if it <i>is</i> in Florida.  How hard could it possibly be?</p><p>-Or-</p><p>Even the dead know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Orange Blossom Bride

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas!
> 
>  
> 
> ETA: I finally found my [Zack](http://photos.essence.com/sites/default/files/images/2014/09/28/alfred-enoch-455296592-cropped.jpg)! It's Alfred Enoch. Mm hmm. Still looking for Alec.

Dean had an unspoken _No Florida_ policy. He always told himself that it was simply because the place was so _weird_. He kind of believed the entire state was haunted. Or maybe there was a lingering curse the natives had put in the water, just to spite the Conquistadors for being total dicks. Considering the place was, like, ninety per cent swamp, there was a lot of potentially-cursed water sloshing around. Plus, it was so _humid_ , the kind of air that they used to warn you about in the old days for containing evil humors. It did terrible things to his skin, at any rate.

And there was the whole ‘Gabriel thing’, as he had taken to calling it. But that had nothing to do with his reluctance, really. He just had enough messed up crap on his plate already without adding a whole state full.

The key lime pie was pretty good, though.

They always managed to pass Florida-based cases on to other hunters. These days, it always fell to Sam to outsource. None of the hunters in their network would deal with Dean unless they had to. Sam had become, Dean realized grimly, Dean’s _handler_ more than his _brother_ in the hunting community. Need some muscle on a tricky case? Call Sam Winchester. He’ll sic his brother on it and get him back on-leash when the job’s done.

But then, many of them wouldn’t even deal with Sam now. Dean wasn’t sure how it had happened—he sure as hell hadn’t spoken to anyone about it—but he had a sinking feeling that their role in unleashing the Darkness had become something of an open secret. Demons tended to talk under torture, after all. And who’s to say there wasn’t another hunter out there with some other helpful angel friend offering up information over burgers and beer?

He came back to himself. His hands were white-knuckled on the wheel, and his jaw clicked loudly in his ears as he ground his teeth. Sam was probably looking at him out of the corner of his eye as they passed through seemingly endless miles of pine forest. He took a breath. He loosened his grip and moved one hand down to rest on his thigh, forcing the fingers to unclench.

Sam was carefully staring out of the window at the monotonous landscape. Southern Georgia slowly melted into Florida, by way of black signs with garish neon lettering. Some advertised the kind of strip clubs that Dean had no desire to investigate. Most, though, seemed to hawk fruit and, bizarrely, fireworks. Dean didn’t want to imagine the mess if _that_ ever went wrong.

“I know you didn’t want to come down here,” Sam said at last. “I could've passed it on to someone else.”

“Oh yeah, Sam?” Dean asked, irritation serrating his voice. “Who?” He hazarded a full look at his brother, who was now watching him. “I’m not being sarcastic. Who? Almost nobody’s taken my calls in, like, three months, and your phone hasn’t exactly been blowing up with people wanting to chat recently, either. We only got this case because the owner is a friend of Jody’s, and Jody doesn’t think we’re complete fuck-ups, for reasons which completely escape me.”

“I know,” Sam said quietly. He seemed shaken, but refused to look away. Dean looked back at the road. “I know that, Dean. But _someone_ would have picked it up, even if they didn’t want to deal with us, specifically. Hunters are professionals. Just because we aren’t on great terms right now, doesn’t mean they’d let innocent people get hurt.” He looked back to the window. “And besides, eventually we’ll…”

“We’ll what, Sam? Fix it, and suddenly we’ll be in everyone’s good books again? Like, oh, hey, guys, sorry we broke the world. _Again._ Our bad. Don’t worry, we brought duct tape! Who wants shots?”

“No, of course not, it’s just…”

“Sam, I appreciate your optimism. Really. I’m glad one of us has some. But you don’t Chernobyl the world and then get high fives just because you contained the leak.” He frowned. “And we haven’t really even contained the leak yet, anyway.”                                 

“No, Dean, I know that. I do, okay? Trust me. I'm not expecting a ticker-tape parade, but I think people are more forgiving than you give them credit for.” He pointedly ignored Dean's scornful noise. “Especially if we help them rebuild. We have a lot of knowledge between us, you, me and Cas. There has to be _something_ we know that will be useful for when we fix it.”

“If,” Dean said, inwardly sighing with relief as a sign appeared, indicating a gas station up ahead.

“Dean,” Sam said, wearily. They'd had a variation of this discussion every few days. “We _will_...”

“Sam, I'll let you handle the Norman Vincent Peale angle on this one, and I'll focus on keeping us on the road.”

Sam sighed. “Damn it. I knew I should have referred Jody, but she insisted. You're going to be in a pissy mood the whole time, even _though_ you were just complaining that we haven't made an inch of progress and you were practically climbing the walls for a case.”

“Your library has nothing useful on this subject. Plenty about werewolf mating habits though. Which, by the way, what the _hell_. And Cas is...” Here had to clear his throat. He wondered if he was getting a cold. “Cas is still ransacking the Archives upstairs with no luck, as far as we know.”

“As far as we...”

Dean glanced at him from the corner of his eye and saw a strange look pass over Sam's face: there and gone. He could have imagined it.

“What?”

“Yeah, as far as we know. Nothing.”

“Uh-huh. Like I said.”

The gas station came into view: a ramshackle thing with a cracked concrete forecourt and two grimy pumps. A handwritten sign advertised hot coffee; another, a vacancy for a part time cashier. An image of a giant flamingo in the window offered the only splash of color.

Sam went to pay, and returned carrying two cups of coffee. It was, as the sign had promised, hot, though not much else. Sam leaned against the hood with a show of casualness that set alarm bells ringing in Dean's head.

“So,” he said, just as casually, and now the bells were ringing louder, “Are you gonna call Cas?”

Dean cleared his throat again. Definitely a cold brewing. “Call Cas? What for?”

“What _for_?” Sam asked, all his studied nonchalance giving way to disbelief. “Uh, I dunno, Dean. Maybe to see how his search is going?”

“He'd call if anything useful came up.” Dean said tightly.

“Or...y’know, maybe to talk? To see how he's doing?”

“He...” Dean cleared his throat again. Damn it. He needed cough drops or something. “He'd call if he was in real trouble.”

There was a protracted silence at that, and Dean finally looked over. Sam's expression was as flat as the landscape around them.

“I mean...he probably would.” The pump clicked off, and Dean replaced it in its cradle. “No, he definitely would. He always does.” _Eventually_ , he added silently, _when he’s out of all other options_. He wiped his hands on his jeans and wondered if he still had any Purell in the glove box. “And he knows I would, too.”

“Still, you guys used to talk pretty regularly, but for the last few months...”

“Hey, dude’s busy. No news is good news, right? Or at least not...terrible news.”

Sam still said nothing, but took a long drink of his coffee, staring into the middle distance. “Maybe he'd like to hear from you when one you _isn't_ bleeding to death or in mortal fucking peril for once,” he said at last. He crushed the paper cup and walked off to throw it away.

Neither of them spoke for the rest of the drive.

Finally, after nearly a solid day of driving, they’d made it.

“Talk about your fixer-upper,” Dean said, under his breath.

“ _The Lion King_ , Dean? Really?”

“Shut up, it's a classic.”

“ _Aladdin_ was better,” Sam said, narrowing his eyes.

“ _Aladdin_ was the story of dumb luck and getting ahead on good looks. She wouldn't have even looked at him twice if he hadn't been Disney's Next Top Model. What kind of lesson is that for kids, I ask you.”

“Gee, Dean, a career criminal who uses his looks and charm to get out of trouble. _Not at all_ relatable to you, is it?”

“Personally, I prefer _Cinderella_ ,” an amused voice behind them said, causing them to whirl around in surprise. “But then, I've always been a bit old-fashioned.” The man smiling at them had closely-cropped hair and warm brown skin. His dark eyes looked friendly, but tired. “I agree with you about Aladdin being good-looking, though.”

“I...that's not...I mean...” Dean pulled himself up to his full height, straightening his jacket.

“Are you Zack, by any chance?” Sam asked smoothly, sparing Dean the indignity of trying to find a comeback sometime this month.

“Afraid so,” Zack said, offering his hand. “And you must be Jody's boys. Let me guess: You're Sam. She said you'd be unfeasibly tall. And you must be Dean. She said you'd probably get flustered.”

“Flustered?” Dean sputtered. “What...I’m not....”

Zack laughed at him, the tiredness in his eyes lifting momentarily. “Just kidding, man. She said you'd be the one wearing three layers in spite of the heat.”

Sam laughed at that, too, the traitor.

“I'm so glad you could make it,” Zack said, suddenly turning serious and exhausted again. “I don't know what I'm going to do. I've sunk so much money into this place already, and the last few days have been...well. Alec is hellbent on heading back up to Sioux Falls as soon as he can, but we've had to take the car to the garage.”

“Really?” Sam asked.

“Yeah, the other night, Alec said he was leaving for Sioux Falls first thing in the morning. Then _bam._ Car’s dead. They can’t figure out what’s wrong with it.”

“He was just gonna leave you here to deal?” He’d just met Zack, but the thought of a supposed friend abandoning him with a potentially deadly threat sat wrong with Dean. He shied away from contemplating exactly why that was.

“Oh, no. Alec wants me to go back with him, but...”

“Alec, he's the architect?” Sam asked, since Zack seemed to have lost his train of thought.

“Yes,” Zack said, coughing a little. There must have been a cold going around, after all. “He's...he's been instrumental in helping me tackle this project. Which isn't easy to do long-distance, as I'm sure you can imagine. When I found that barn, he said he couldn't accurately tell from the pictures if it was worth saving. He wanted to come down and look at it himself. Forbade me from stepping foot in the place til he could see if it was safe. Can you believe it?” He smiled again, as though his face naturally wanted to fall into the expression, and only circumstance was stopping it. “We haven't had a chance to complete the survey. Don't imagine we'll get to, now.”

“Well, we're experts in this department,” Sam assured him.

“Yeah, regular ghostbusters,” Dean said, with his most charming grin.

“She said you guys _are_ the best in the country at this kind of thing. Whatever...this kind of thing actually is.”

“Don't worry, we'll have your project back up and running. HGTV will be banging down your door before you can say ‘feature wall’.”

“Thanks, Dean,” Zack said warmly.

“Do you happen to have any old records on this place?” Sam asked. “It might help us narrow down the most likely suspect for our ghost. You say it was a woman? And she was definitely wearing white?”

“Yes, definitely,” Zack said, going a little wild-eyed. “The way she _screamed_ through the window—though there was no sound.” He shivered. “And yeah, the Realtor gave me everything she had on the place when I bought it. Come inside and I'll let you have a look.” Seeing Dean's dubious expression, he added. “Don't worry. She may not look like much on the outside, but I promise, she's structurally sound. She's had a hard life, but she's got me to look after her now. Ah, but there I go, being a hopeless romantic again.”

“Any chance we could speak to Alec?” Dean asked, eyeing the rickety steps mistrustfully before he climbed. “We like to take as many witness statements as we can.”

“Mmm,” said Zack, thoughtfully. “I think he's asleep. Poor guy hasn't been sleeping well, as you might imagine. Well, neither have I, really. But it doesn't seem to happen during the day, so we've been napping in shifts. He really is...”

But Zack stopped short. Dean peered over his shoulder anxiously, already on high alert, but the source of Zack's sudden silence was a thoroughly human one: another man, in a state of half-awake, half-dressed disarray. At a guess, Dean would say he was a runner, or a swimmer. He stood, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand for a moment before he noticed them. “Oh!”

“Speak of the devil,” Zack said, grinning at him, and then at Sam and Dean. “This is Alec. Alec, these are the guys Jody mentioned. Sam and Dean Winchester. They're here to help with the, uh...phenomena.”

“Phenomena,” Alec said, running his hands through his blond hair, which appeared to be going through some sort of crisis on top of his head. “That's one word for it.” He nodded to them and then headed into the kitchen. “We have a ghost problem and she sends us a couple of underwear models. What're they gonna do, Blue Steel it to death?”

“Uh,” Sam said.

“Hey, we might just do that, buddy,” Dean said, defensively, before realizing that it actually made no sense. “I mean...”

“Oh, don't mind him,” Zack said under his breath, coloring slightly. “He's just...out of sorts. He hasn’t had a cup of coffee in four hours. And dealing with, um, things like this are kind of beyond his remit. I mean, smart like you wouldn't believe. A genius. But, uh, analytical rather than...intuitive.”

“And you?” Sam asked.

“Oh, you'll find I'm as credulous as they come,” Zack said, smiling again. “Much to Alec's chagrin.”

“Only because people take advantage of you, Zachary.” Alec had emerged at some point during their hushed exchange, holding a cup of coffee. He closed his eyes and inhaled the steam it emitted. “I hate to see that tender heart of yours get broken.”

For a moment, Zack's normal chattiness seemed to fail him. Then he cleared his throat and said: “Anyway, Alec, they'd like to ask you a few questions about what you saw.”

“Sure,” Alec said, with a wan smile. “There's coffee in the pot. Help yourselves. Let me get dressed and I'll tell you all about my tale of woe.”

****                            

“So you were in separate bedrooms and the ghost appeared to you both at the same time?”

“Of course we were in separate bedrooms,” Alec said shortly, nursing another cup of coffee. He'd taken the time to get dressed in jeans a cool white linen shirt, but hadn't shaved. Dean heard the rough scrape of two-day stubble as Alec ran a hand over his jaw. “And no, it wasn’t exactly at the same time. It was almost like she was going back and forth between us, really quickly. But like Zack said: it was a young woman in white. Looked to be twenty, maybe?”

“And she was yelling and banging on your window.”

“Yeah, you know, the _second floor_ window.”

“But you couldn't hear what she was yelling.”

“No, it was silent. I don't even know why I woke up, except that it suddenly turned freezing cold.”

“Anything else you noticed? Any detail could help.”

“Well.” He paused to think. “She was wearing some kind of...netting, for lack of a better word.”

“Netting, like...a shroud?”

“It wasn't over her face. She was kind of all tangled up in it. Like it got wrapped around her by accident.” He shrugged. “But you know, the most obvious thing was that _she was a fucking ghost_.”

“Women in white are actually a pretty common type of ghost.”

“There are _types of ghosts_?” Alec asked, setting his cup down. “Enough to warrant descriptors such as 'common'?”

“Yeah, it's a bitch, but that's life.” Dean said, as amiably as he could. “Anyway, because it's so common, we know how to deal with them. But, you know, women in white, like most ghosts, are revenge-driven.”

“Why would she want revenge on me? I’ve never seen her before in my life!” Alec looked like panic was beginning to claw at him.

“Oh, not _you_ specifically. Different kinds of vengeful spirits haunt _kinds_ of people.”

“Oh? And what kind of person am I?”

“Well, uh...see,” Dean hesitated. His modus operandi when dealing with witnesses had always leaned more towards the _hit ‘em hard and let ‘em deal_ variety. But it had (almost) always been tempered with his innate dislike of seeing people in distress. Sam always put on a better show of emotional openness for strangers, but that’s usually all it was: a show. His candor was one of his best weapons, because people didn’t see it as such, and so he could use it on them unnoticed.

“Women in white tend to haunt the unfaithful—you know, murderous lovers, adulterers, people like that,” he said at last.

“Unfaithful?” Alec said, drawing back in surprise. “But that’s impossible. I'm not seeing anybody. And I’ve never cheated on anyone in the past, either. Or killed anyone, for that matter.”

“What about Zack?”

“ _Zack_? No, he...” Alec paused to take a sip of coffee. Above the rim of the mug, his eyebrows were drawn tightly together. “He was with someone for a long time. Someone not very nice. But he was faithful to a fault. They broke it off, finally, about nine months ago. That's why he bought this place, you know. So no, we're both single, non-adulterous, non-murderers. Sorry.”

“Okay, so, that's kinda weird for a woman in white case, not gonna lie.” At Alec's slightly alarmed face, he added: “Don't worry, we deal with way, _way_ weirder crap all the time. Basically, what we have to do is find out who the ghost was, find the body, salt it, and burn it. Boom. That'll put the spirit to rest and you guys can get on with your episode of _This Old House._ ”

“If you say so.”

“Trust me, I'm a professional.” But Alec did not seem overly reassured by Dean's smile.

****

Much like the upstairs, the downstairs of the house was practically empty of furniture, but scrupulously clean and bright. It all smelled faintly of fresh paint. Sam sat at the table, hunched over a stack of papers, dividing them into piles as he read. He had been at it for hours.

“What’s the word?” Dean asked.

Sam shook his head, still looking down. “There have been three suspicious deaths on this parcel of land in the last one hundred and fifty years, but two were men and one was an elderly woman—none of whom match our description.”

“Well, damn.” Dean said, sliding into a seat. “What about the nearby town?”

“This house predates the town,” Sam said, tipping his head back and staring at the ceiling. “But yeah, we'll go into the local library tomorrow and have a look.”

Suddenly Zack appeared at the table, holding a large tray of sandwiches. “Snack break?” he asked, brightly. “Given how weird our sleep schedule has been, we probably won’t eat dinner until about ten o’clock.”

“How European of us,” Alec said from behind him, coming in from the outside and bringing the smell of the open air in with him. He wiped his feet. “Speaking of dinner. We don’t really have much in the house, but we do have stuff for pancakes. I'll make us some this evening. If there are no objections to having breakfast food at night, that is.”

“Hell no,” Dean said. “I love breakfast food.”

“Yeah, sounds good,” Sam agreed.

“Alec _does_ make the best pancakes in Sioux Falls,” Zack said, smiling down at the platter of sandwiches. “Gotta say I missed them these last few months.”                                

“Hell, after the week you've had, I think you deserve some. _We_ deserve some, I mean. Oh, hey, PB and J.” He leaned over Zack’s shoulder to pick up a sandwich and wandered away with it, apparently lost in thought. Zack’s eyes followed Alec for a long time.

“Um,” Sam said, clearing his throat. “So, do you think we could have a look at that barn sometime this evening?”

“What?” Zack asked, seemingly startled. “Oh. If you want. It’s behind the house, about half an acre back, just behind the wood line.” He belatedly seemed to realize he was still holding the platter, and set it down. “I, uh...I don’t know how structurally sound it is, as I said.”

“Don’t worry,” Dean said, with vehement cheerfulness, “Doing unsafe things in unsafe surroundings is second nature to us.”

“Alright,” Zack said, uncertainly. Then more firmly: “But please, that can wait until morning. I want you guys to go over it with a fine tooth comb, and you’ll lose the light in a couple of hours.”

“Yeah, of course,” Sam said, but his placating tone was aimed more at Dean somehow. “No need to rush into things without thinking it through.”

“Very wise.” The approval in Zack’s voice was clear, and if he noticed the look Dean aimed at Sam, he didn’t comment on it.

****

Dean laid salt lines around the doors and windows. Sam patrolled the grounds with the EMF meter, which promptly went nuts. Alec watched, leaning against the wall with crossed arms and a raised brow, but said nothing. Dean wondered if the man owned a hairbrush. Or a razor.

Sam explained their routine with a patience that Dean couldn’t seem to muster, but all Zack said, at the end was: “Well, she’s never actually come _in_ the house. It’s like she just...doesn’t want us in bed. Like she’s trying to get us out of our rooms.”

“Out of your rooms and into where?” Sam asked, his brow wrinkling in thought.

“Probably out of the house so she can stick a shiv in you,” Dean muttered darkly.

“Dean.”

“Ghosts can shiv people?” Zack asked in alarm.

“Not exactly, no,” Sam said, once again placating with his voice and wreaking vengeance with his eyes. “But they can have the power of telekinesis.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Alec said, straightening from his slouch. “We wouldn’t go outside if the ghost is outside.”

“Ghost logic, man,” Dean said, wiping stray grains of salt from his hands.

Alec looked at him for a long moment, then turned to Sam: “It’s more like she wanted to keep us _in_ the house. Just not in our rooms.” He frowned.

“Don’t worry,” Sam said. “We’ll figure it out. But, you raise a good point. If she manifests herself when you’re in your bedrooms, then I’d like to ask you guys to go to bed as usual tonight.”

“Well,” Zack said, rubbing the back of his neck. “That’s a problem.”

“What, why?” Dean asked.

“There are only two usable bedrooms in the house, and I want you guys in one of them. The third is floor-to-ceiling moving boxes, still.” Zack shrugged. “I figure, she comes to the window, you’ll be there with your, uh, ghost traps or whatever it is you use.”

“Well, Dean and I could each take a bedroom and stake it out while you guys are in bed. We’ll stay out of sight.”

“You’re going to just...stand in our closets and watch us while we try to sleep? Do you have any idea how creepy that sounds?” Alec asked.

Dean almost retorted that it wasn’t actually all that creepy, thanks, but then he remembered the way he’d given Cas a hard time about doing something similar, and so he said nothing.

“Well, what do you suggest?” he asked instead, smiling carefully.

“We’ll share,” Alec said, at the same instant that Zack said: “I’ll sleep downstairs.” They stopped and stared at each other for a moment, then began speaking again in garbled unison. The phrases _You need sleep,_ and _Not leaving you alone with a fucking ghost_ and _Don’t argue_ ricocheted between them, but it was hard to tell who was saying what.

“Whoa, whoa, okay,” Dean said, holding his hands out and cringing from inexplicable secondhand embarrassment. “Calm down! It’s not a big deal. Someone needs to be in each of the bedrooms. Sam and I will take one, someone else take the other. Sleep on the floor, share the bed, hang from the rafters. It doesn’t matter. You’re both adults. I put salt lines around the windows, anyway, so she’s not getting in. If she shows up, holler and we’ll come in.”

“Right,” Alec said. He ran his hand through his hair, making it even more dishevelled than it had been. It irritated Dean, for some reason. “Right, yeah. Fine. We’ll...improvise.” Alec looked up at Zack with an uncertain smile. “I promise I don’t snore.”

“Oh, that’s...that’s good,” Zack said, blinking as though he had something in his eye. “Excuse me, I’ve just remembered I promised to call Jody with an update.” With that, he got up and made his way into the house.

“Oh, we were gonna do…” Sam began to call to him, but he was already gone, “that.” He frowned slightly and looked at Dean, who shrugged. “But go ahead.”

“Someone’s got a bee in their bonnet,” Dean said, casting a glance at Alec, who was watching the spot where Zack had disappeared. Without a word, he turned and walked toward the back of the house.

“What was all _that_ about?” Dean asked, bewildered.

Sam looked at him for a long moment. “No idea,” he said slowly. “You know, Dean, I’m thinking.”

“Oh, that’s never good.”

“I’m just thinking,” Sam continued, unperturbed, “that maybe we could use a hand on this one.”

“What, Jody? She’s all the way up in the Black Hills with a possible ghoul case! And besides, you know it’s not exactly safe to be crisscrossing the country right now.”

The Darkness, whatever it was, manifested itself in intermittent pockets of wasting and madness. It was like an infection bubbling under the skin of the earth. Occasionally it erupted. Five days ago, they drove towards Carson City while listening to a newscaster describe the scene: an entire street of people, screaming as they ripped the skin from their faces and bodies, before falling over dead. The corpses had all leaked black sludge from their lidless eyes and lipless mouths. People were calling it some kind of Doomsday cult ritual, but Dean knew better. The Nevada hunters had known better, too, even if they didn’t have all the details.

They’d known enough, though.

“What are you talking about?” Sam asked. “We literally just did that. We’ve been doing it for weeks.”

“We have an early warning system, remember?” That’s what they were calling it. An early warning system. It was easier to put it in those terms than to admit the residual claim the Mark still had on him, beneath his unblemished skin. It pulled him towards the scene of impending carnage, calling to him: _Come see. Come look upon my work, monster, and rejoice_.

Usually, they arrived in time to quarantine the unlucky one or two whose skin bloomed black, to burn the sickness out of them with holy oil and hope that they had enough of their minds left to eventually return to a semblance of their old life.

They hadn’t been in time for Carson City. Dean had changed that tire in record time, but not quite fast enough.

The Bunker’s library had offered no hint of how to stop the spread of infection except for the one, oblique reference to holy oil. Thank anyone who wasn’t God that Sam had been able to figure out what it meant. But it didn’t solve the root of the problem.

Dean forced his attention back to Sam.

“Yeah, I know, Dean. But Jody…Wait, I wasn’t even talking about Jody.” Sam looked frustrated.

“Huh?”

“I mean Cas.”

“ _Huh_?”

“ _Castiel_ , Dean. Angel of the Lord. Perhaps you’ve heard of him?”

“What? Why? Sam, this is a salt and burn job. Why the hell would I bother Cas with something like this?”

“Maybe he’d like a break from, ah, ransacking the Archives, Dean. Maybe he’d like a hunt. Maybe he’d like to feel...Look, I don’t know, just call it a hunch.”

“Sam, he’s barely recovered from that curse bullshit,” Dean said. He felt a strange sensation of panic, beginning to squeeze his heart so hard he was half-afraid it would implode. “You saw how bad he was. You remember what he was like before he left.”

Sam’s eyes took on a shuttered look. “Yes, Dean. I remember.” A beat. “I’m going to get our things from the car.”

The lump of matter behind Dean’s ribs collapsed and began to develop its own event horizon.

***

The dreamlike mood of the evening sank into something more sombre as the mauve eight o’clock darkened and went black at nine. They ate huddled around the table amid the haphazard piles of moving boxes, watching fireflies flicker to life through the windows. Alec’s pancakes were as good as promised. For once, Zack didn’t seem up to doing much talking, and Alec seemed too distracted for sarcasm, which Dean found slightly unsettling. Still, he guessed waiting for a ghostly visitation would be enough to ruin most civilians’ evenings. He, himself, just wanted to finish this case and get home. If they could just pin down who this chick was, it’d make it a hell of a lot easier.

“Well, damn,” Dean said, pushing away from the table with a show of good cheer. “Compliments to the chef.”

“Thanks,” Zack said. The sincerity was disturbing.

“So, here’s the plan,” Sam began, setting down his knife and fork. “Dean and I will take the back bedroom and you guys can take the front one. At least one of you should be in bed, like you’re sleeping, since she only seems to arrive after you’ve settled in.”

They both nodded, mutely, and did not look at each other.

“You guys okay?” Dean asked.

“Yeah, peachy,” Alec said, and his voice seemed to grate through the unfurnished room. He cleared his throat. “I mean, aside from the fact that there’s going to be a _fucking ghost_ here in the next two hours, I’m great.”

“Alec,” Zack said, quietly, but didn’t follow it up with anything. He apparently didn’t need to, for Alec wilted under the one-word rebuke, sinking back into this chair.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’ll, uh...just wash the dishes.”

“You don’t need to do that,” Zack protested, but Alec had already gathered the plates and silverware and disappeared into the kitchen. They heard the sound of running water, and the low clatter of china against metal.

“He needs to have something to do,” Alec said, with a thin-lipped smile. “He doesn’t do well with just...sitting and waiting for things to happen. Man of action, you know.” 

“I know the feeling,” Dean said. He tried to keep the bitterness out of it, but he wasn’t sure he succeeded.

They made one more check of the salt lines and then followed Zack and Alec upstairs. No one seemed to feel like speaking, and there was a line of tension that seemed to bind itself around their host and his friend, pulling tighter as they reached the hallway of the top floor. Like the rest of the house, it smelled of fresh paint and wood lacquer, but unlike the ground floor, this level showed signs of being lived-in. There were family photos on the walls. Very few recent ones, though, Dean noted. There was only one that he could see, near the front bedroom. In it, a slightly younger, much less tired Zack stood beaming at the camera with his arm slung around Alec. Alec’s hair was combed into submission beneath a slightly self conscious mortarboard hat, and he wore a billowing black robe and a brown sash around his throat, like some extra from Harry Potter.

“Go Jacks,” Alec said behind him. Dean could almost see the wry turn of his mouth as he spoke.

“Jacks?” Dean asked, looking over his shoulder to find Alec staring thoughtfully at the photo in question.

“South Dakota State.”

“Oh, right! Our uncle Bobby used to take us to see basketball games there sometimes,” Dean said, smiling in earnest.

“I was on the swim team,” Alec said, and wow, if they weren’t having a conversation like normal damn human beings. Something in Dean relaxed slightly. “And I graduated with honors from the Architecture program.”

“Overachiever, huh?  Just like Sam.”

Alec snorted, though the derision seemed aimed mostly at himself. “I guess. It took me three tries to pass the damn licensing exam.”

“I’m in no position to judge. I’m a high school dropout. All I got’s a GED.”

“And you’re a top-shelf ghost hunter. Impressive.”

“Hey,” Dean said, drawing back slightly, the irritated feeling resurfacing. “No need for that, man.”

“What? I mean it. You come highly recommended, and Jody is an excellent judge of character. So you’re clearly an expert in your field. Which is, ah, let’s say, highly specialized. And you’ve done that without a formal education, off your own back. Most people couldn’t. Hell, _I_ couldn’t. I’m gonna guess you got your GED on your own initiative, too. Am I right?” Dean gave a bewildered nod. “I thought so. It’s impressive. Be proud.” Alec shrugged at Dean’s dumbstruck face. “Or not. But you know, it’s kind of stupid not to enjoy the benefit of something you’ve earned. Pride’s one of the benefits.”

Dean looked at Alec, trying to formulate some kind of appropriate response, oscillating between a smartass remark and a genuine thank you. Belatedly, he realized that he’d veered into angelic eye contact territory, and that said territory was a minefield when not face-to-face with an actual angel. Scratch that. It often was even _when_ face-to-face with one, too. Alec’s eyes, he noticed were a nice shade of blue. A nice shade, but not the right shade for observing at this distance: the pale blue of a full-morning sky, rather than the deeper hue of the hour at first light.

The sound of a quiet cough pulled Dean out of his eye-color induced existential crisis. ( _And what the hell was_ that _about,_ he thought, uneasily.) He and Alec turned at the same moment to see Zack watching them from the doorway of his room, wearing an uncharacteristically closed-off expression. “I’m sorry to intrude on your _moment_ , but it’s getting pretty late and I’d kind of like to get this over with.”

“We weren’t having a…” Dean began, but was interrupted (mercifully, for once) by Sam.

“Dean, I left the tire iron in the car.”

Zack’s hard look fell away in surprise. “Tire...iron?”

“Iron temporarily dissipates ghosts,” Sam explained. “Same with salt. We’ve got salt shells in the gun, but I’d rather not start shooting up your newly-renovated bedroom.”

“Thanks, that’s, um, that’s very thoughtful,” Zack said, looking a little seasick. “Just...be careful.”

“Don’t worry,” Dean said, straightening the cuffs of his over shirt. “I won’t go all Baryshnikov.”

“Baryshnikov, Dean?” Sam asked, with a strange look on his face. “Do you mean Kalashnikov?”

“No, man, with tire iron. You know, Baryshni---I’ll be right back.”  With that, Dean descended the stairs at a pace that was not a run. A brisk walk. Purposeful. After a moment he was out the door.

 _Well, that was a weirdly intense and uncomfortable ten minutes_ , Dean thought as he made his way to the glowering outline of the Impala. The night air was thick with humidity and the whir of insects, and the oak trees in their coats of Spanish moss had a weird, gothic shape.

A twin beam of headlights pierced the dark. Dean startled from his distracted rummaging in the trunk. He automatically ran through the weapons he had on hand. Satisfied with their number and effectiveness, he pulled the trunk closed.

There was something familiar about the signature of the engine as the car approached, something that made him narrow his eyes as he attempted to place it, then widen them once he did. The dusty gold bulk of a Continental pulled into view and then rumbled to a halt. Dean dropped the tire iron into the grass. The engine switched off, clicking as it began its laborious cool-down process. Dean felt rooted to the spot as a familiar figure emerged and shut the door behind him with a decisive thud.

There was nothing decisive, however, about the way Cas said Dean’s name. They stood by their cars in the dark, like two castaways clinging to rocks, watching each other across a gulf.

“What are you doing here?” Dean asked, stooping to retrieve the tire iron. It dawned on him that wasn't really the kind of greeting you gave to someone you were happy to see. He opened his mouth to try again, but Cas was already speaking.

“Sam called,” Cas said. Dean didn’t have to look at him to know he was frowning. “He said you...might need support for this particular case.”

“Support?” Dean asked, incredulous. “It’s a salt and burn, Cas. Sam and I have it covered.”

Cas said nothing, and, had he been the kind to fidget, as Dean was, he clearly would have been doing it now. Dean loosened his grip on the tire iron, aware that his fingers had started to hurt. “I mean, what’s there to do? It’s a _ghost_ , Cas. There’s nothing for you to smite.”

Dean’s eyes had adjusted to the dark enough to see Cas recoil slightly at that and _shit_ , there was that blank expression, the one that spoke volumes in its silence.

“I can,” Cas said, “occasionally do things that don’t involve smiting.” The air seemed to grow steadily colder with each word, until Dean expected to see his breath on the next exhale. 

“Yeah, no, sure, I didn’t mean…”

“Sam said you might need _moral support_ with this case,” Cas cut in. He emphasized the words awkwardly, as though he’d only ever read them before.

“What? Why?” Dean asked, his abortive apology forgotten.

“You had a run-in with Gabriel here in a few years ago. Well, not _here_ , exactly, but in this general geographic area. Correct?”

“Yeah, and? Sam told you we needed moral support because of an old case?”

“Not—not exactly,” Cas admitted. They’d drifted towards each other over the course of the conversation. “It was...I inferred it. He said you were working a case in Florida, and you might need a hand. He implied you’d both appreciate my presence. Um. I assume that what Gabriel did...”

“God, Gabriel was such a _dick_ ,” Dean spat. He tried to ignore the hesitant way Cas had said ‘you’d both appreciate my presence’, as though he thought Sam was probably wrong. Old angers were easier to deal with than current uncertainties.

“Mm,” Cas agreed, leaning against the hood of the Impala. “He was. It was just his way.” After a moment, he added: “Always kind to me, though.”

“ _Kind_ to you?”  The backs of Dean’s thighs hit the Impala heavily as he settled next to Cas. “That bastard kicked your ass and shoved you in some Heavenly locker. Don’t you remember?”

“Of course I remember,” Cas said mildly. He turned his face towards the stars. Dean allowed himself a moment to admire his profile before he averted his gaze.  “He ripped my tongue out. Comparatively gentle to his other available options.”

“He did what?”

“Oh, not in _this_ body,” Cas said. He looked over at Dean quickly, as though to reassure him. “In my true form. I mean, obviously it rendered me speechless here, too. The duct tape was just for, uh, dramatic flair. An object lesson.”

Dean continued to stare at him, aghast. “Your own brother rips out your tongue and you’re standing here talking about how kind he was. Do have any _idea_ how fucked up that is, man?”

“He let me live, Dean,” Cas said. “None of the others would have. A lesser angel taking on an archangel is like...it’s like a housecat facing off against a lion. There’s no hope of winning. To even attempt it is...madness. But then, madness seems to be one of my defining features, even when I’m in my right mind.” He smiled faintly and looked at Dean, as though for confirmation. When none was forthcoming, he laid his hand on Dean’s arm, another reassuring gesture. “He put it back, anyway. There was no permanent damage.”

Dean suddenly realized that this was the first conversation they’d had—really had—since before the Mark was removed. Cas’ return to the Bunker didn’t count. There had been too much blood, and too much to do. Dean made himself pay attention, bit down the automatic desire to cut this conversation off at the knees, like he usually would.

“Yeah, swell guy,” Dean said. “A real peach compared to the others.”

Cas laughed, a little mirthlessly. “Raphael spared me the second time, but only so he could kill me later, with more fanfare. Archangels and their pageantry.  He nearly _did_ kill me, actually, when he made his ultimatum. I never told you about that, did I?” Cas asked, shoving his hands in his pockets. “That was a particularly unpleasant beating. I think he got carried away. Hannah told me he enjoyed doling out discipline.”

“Seriously, Cas, that’s...that’s...”

“That’s family for you.”  He paused, and his smile turned rueful. “You know, Raphael never put my eye back. It’s a good thing I have others.”

“Other...eyes?”

Cas waved a hand, dismissively. “The _point_ is, Gabriel showed me mercy. And he stood with us at the end, when all others had forsaken us. For that, I loved him. Whether it’s _fucked up_ or not, it’s the truth.”

He shrugged and looked at Dean again. “But he _was_ cruel and vindictive, to you and Sam especially. I thought you...that you might need a channel for, um, whatever it is you might be feeling. I can do that for you. I thought that’s why Sam called.”

There was too much there, too much under the surface, dim shapes moving under the water. Each one was vying for his attention, and each one was dangerous.

“A ‘channel’ for...” Dean repeated, flatly. “I hope you don’t mean what I think you mean.”

Cas looked uncomfortable again. So he meant exactly that. Something cruel flickered in Dean, and he fought it back, with not much success.

“Dean…”

“Sam told me what you asked him. Before you left.”

Cas’ discomfort increased a hundredfold in front of Dean’s eyes. “You once made a similar request of me.”

“And it was a shitty thing for me to do,” Dean snapped, unable to keep his voice from rising. “You know it was. How could you…”

“Dean, where the hell are you?” Dean saw Sam’s silhouette outlined in the golden square of light from the front door. “Did you...oh.”

“Yeah,” Dean called, pushing himself away from the hood and walking back towards the house. He didn’t have to check if Cas was behind him. “Yeah, Sam. ‘Oh’ is right.”

Sam’s gaze dropped to the porch steps and he slouched in on himself for a moment, before taking a breath and straightening back up. “Hey, Cas, good to see you,” Sam said, accomplishing what Dean couldn’t and sounding like an actual functioning adult.

“Sam.”

“I...didn’t expect you until morning,” Sam said as the three of them made their way inside.

“I left Biloxi as soon as you called. Almost.”

“Biloxi, Mississippi?” Dean asked, still trying to sort out the tumult of noise in his head. “I thought you were upstairs playing badass librarian.”

“I was,” Cas said, immediately looking elsewhere. “I...my access got revoked. Um. It’s been difficult to convince anyone to speak to me.” He looked at Sam, then, for some reason, and Dean saw real pain in his eyes, genuine distress that Dean automatically sought to remove but couldn’t, because he didn’t know the source. The realization bothered him. Cas looked down for a moment, then back up again: “To tell the truth, I broke in.”

“To Heaven?” Dean asked. “How? Wait…” Something surfaced in his mind, something Sam had admitted to the passenger side window on a particularly long stretch of Nebraska highway. “Bobby?”

Cas shook his head. “No, I have no idea where he is. They put him with Karen somewhere; I suppose to dissuade him from trying any more heroics.”

Dean snorted. “They’re a bunch of dumbasses if they think that’d work.”

“Yes,” Cas said. “But I didn’t mention that.”

“So, how?”

“I asked for access to the Archives directly. I tried to convince them it would be in everyone’s best interest if we worked together on this. But Hannah feels that I’ve...” he paused, and he seemed to have difficulty swallowing for a moment. “Hannah dealt with the angels who attacked me, but she’s unwilling to act as my intercessor anymore.” Again there was that look of despair, though Cas masked it so quickly this time that Dean wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been staring. “Our talks stalled. I created a distraction and I...opened a window, let’s say. A small one. Getting in and out has been a challenge, but I managed.”

“Til they caught you,” Dean said, feeling the bottom drop out of his stomach. “What did they do to you?”

“They didn’t _catch_ me,” Cas said. “But they did find the access point, and closed it. And they know it was me. So, uh…”

“So you’re Heaven’s Most Wanted again?” Dean asked.

“No, that honor still goes to Metatron, though I’m right behind on the list. Ironic, really.”

“Wait,” Dean said, noticing Sam’s lack of any input to their conversation. “Did you know about this?”

“I thought you knew!” Sam said, holding up his hands. “I swear! That’s why what you said in the car totally threw me.”

“Oh, so you’ll tell Sam but not me?” Dean rounded on Cas, feeling hot stabs of anger and jealousy run through him in turn. It was petulant, it was out of proportion, but he just couldn’t seem to stop the ride. There was too much momentum behind it, and a cliff up ahead. Cliffs called you to jump from them, even when you knew what lay at the bottom.

“Dean, I was going to tell you,” Cas said. Dean tried to ignore the way his imploring look seemed to carry the whole weight of the world in it, pressing against the terminal velocity of Dean’s anger. “It wasn’t Sam’s responsibility, it was mine. I told him I would handle it. I just...didn’t specify when. ”

“Oh yeah?” Dean asked, dropping the arm he had pulled across his chest. His other hand tightened around the tire iron that he couldn’t seem to let go of. “When exactly were you planning to tell me?”

“When I’d made progress,” Cas said. “When I had good news to bring you, rather than yet another failure.” His eyes flicked to Sam for a moment, the back to Dean, and Dean could almost see him click into Angelic Strategist mode. Assessing. Calculating the best angle to attack a problem. Dean frowned in confusion at, what, exactly Cas needed a strategy for, then realized: it was him. He’d seen that look in Castiel’s face a number of times in the last year and a half.

Suddenly, a lot of things made sense.

Suddenly, Dean wanted very much to not be in this room.

Cas had opened his mouth to say something else, but Dean shook his head irritably, and whatever thought Cas had died on the tip of his tongue.

“You know what, forget it, I get what’s going on here.”

“Dean…” Sam began, quietly.

“What?” Cas asked, looking bewildered.

“No, it’s cool. It’s fine. I’m just...I’m gonna go for a walk. Check the salt lines again.” He was already to the door. “You two just, uh, you know, go upstairs and _morally support_ each other while I’m gone.”

“De-”

Cas’ voice was cut off by the closing of the door. Dean found himself inside the car before he even realized he was walking. His own breathing roared in his ears. He brought his head to rest against the steering wheel.

He remembered an increasingly-frantic, increasingly-badly-spelled string of voice messages and texts to Cas that seemed to land in a void. Over 72 hours of radio silence. It had been hard to say which had caused him the rawest panic: that Cas might be dead, or that Cas had finally come to his senses and cut Dean out.

In the end it was neither, and somehow it didn’t make Dean feel any better.  The fact that Cas was ‘not great’ when he’d finally called was worrying enough. But then came: “It may be some time before we see one another again.” Dean and Sam huddled in a hospital supply room, dealing with the first wave of Darkness-related sickness, and Dean knew, from Cas’ voice, that ‘some time’ meant ‘not in this lifetime’. A part of him shut down, a cell door slamming closed.

That was the last they heard of him for the better part of a week. At least, Dean assumed it was a week. He had very little memory of the intervening days. They’d left the hospital with their nostrils full of the bitter perfume of purified flesh, and then...consciousness seemed to slither in and out of Dean’s grasp. He thought he remembered sprawling face-down in a field of wildflowers. He thought he remembered a woman in a black dress. But he must have been hallucinating.

When they eventually made it home, Dean stared down at the ruinous pile of books and mementos that still lay undisturbed: a pyre of all his hopes, all his memories, all his softest, secret wishes, reeking of gasoline and blood. He made some joke, or thought he did, anyway.

And then time seemed to eat its own tail, because there was Castiel, flat on his back and bloody as a battle flag. Dean was _certain_ that he was hallucinating this time and, for one terrible, brief, eternal moment, was sure that he’d done it. He’d plunged that angel blade in until it hit concrete, and now he was doomed to watch Cas plead for help that he would never be able to give.

It had been Sam who rushed forward first, Sam who sunk to his knees and put a hand to Cas’ forehead, Sam who said “ _Dean_ , what the hell’s the _matter_ with you? Get over here and help! Shit, he’s out. Dean, he’s burning up.” It was Sam who’d loosened his tie and sent Dean for something to pillow Cas’ head, even though they both knew, logically, that the floor would crack against Cas’ skull rather than the other way around.

When he’d come to, Cas was heavy in their hands, heavy in the way of stone rather than flesh, despite the warmth emanating from under his red-streaked shirt. They heaved him to his feet with considerable effort. It was only when he swayed into Dean’s space that he saw the bloody pulp where the whites of Cas’ eyes should have been, and the febrile sheen that clouded the blue. It was Sam who noticed the chains.

“Woah, hey, easy,” Sam said, like he was gentling a spooked animal, as they set Cas down in a chair. “Enochian binding magic?” He paused. “Oh, wow, this is...heavy. Hm, we can probably pick the lock with an angel blade dipped in holy water. I think I know the incantation for this.”  Dean sometimes forgot that Sam spoke Enochian. He’d never bothered to ask where he’d learned it. 

Dean tore his gaze away from Cas’ face and down to where Sam was pointing, a silver chain that ended at both wrists and ankles. The sight of it was enough to snap Dean out of whatever mute trance he’d fallen into. Cas needed freedom of movement. He needed to at least have a _chance_ to defend himself or flee. The fact that someone had denied him that made Dean’s throat and eyes burn. “Let’s get those off of you right now,” he’d said. But Cas grabbed him with an urgency Dean hadn’t expected. He felt every point of contact like a brand.

“No,” Cas said. “This is safer.” Each breath he drew seemed wet and labored. “Bolt it to the floor.”

“What?”

“The floor,” Cas said, between gritted teeth. “Bolt it to the floor.”

And so Dean had knelt at his feet and chained him like a dog, and Cas had thanked him for it. Dean had rested his forehead against Cas’ knee, just for a moment, and Cas had let him. Dean brought him a blanket, too, but he had only frowned in confusion when Dean pulled it over his shoulders.

In the end, neither the bolt nor the binding had mattered. By the time they’d tracked Rowena down, Cas was gone, leaving a crater in the floor and in Dean’s chest.

But they’d saved him. That was the main thing, Dean told himself. Nothing else mattered about their later encounter. Not Dean’s cracked jaw or black eye. Not the howl of anguish he swallowed when it seemed like they were too late to save him, yet again. Not even the flood of gratitude and relief and...other things he felt when Cas opened his eyes and looked at him. Not the sudden, overwhelming desire to pull Cas to him and kiss him with all the tenderness his bloodied mouth could muster.

Those things all had to do with _Dean_ , and they didn’t—couldn’t—matter.

He’d refused Cas’ offer to heal his face, and Cas had left the next night. How he felt about that didn’t matter either.

Dean’s heartbeat slowed as he sat in the familiar dark of the driver’s seat. He unbowed his head and blinked himself back into the moment.

There was frost on the windows. He exhaled slowly, and watched it steam upward.

 _Shit_.

He grabbed the tire iron from the passenger’s seat and looked wildly around, craning his neck to see behind him. Nothing. The back windshield was quickly icing over, too.

He needed to get out of here and not sit like some dumbfuck teenager in a slasher flick. He drew in a deep breath and prepared himself to run. He grabbed the door handle, and the cold metal bit into his skin. No. Everything was far too quiet, and he couldn’t get a read on where the ghost was. He let go, and cleared a patch from the frost with his sleeve.

One sunken eye. Impossible to say the color. White wax skin.

Dean scrambled backwards.

“Shit.” He didn’t really want to go smashing up the car, and all the windows he’d replaced, but he also didn’t want to get ganked by a ghost. Such were the choices in life.

He waited.

The window frosted over again. The ice was thicker now. He shivered in spite of his layers.

Okay, time to make a break for it. He reached out for the handle again.

His phone rang, shrill in the cold silence, and Dean nearly felt his skin peel away in surprise. “Fuck!”

Screw this. He wrenched the door open and hit the ground running. Ahead of him was a white shape, flickering in and out of his vision like a wan flame. He charged at it, swinging the tire iron. But the ghost was gone before the hit landed. He was alone in the yard. He turned in a circle, watching for any sign of it, but nothing appeared.

His phone rang again.

“God damn it,” he growled. He pulled it out of his pocket with one hand and answered it, unseeing. “ _What_?”

“Dean,” Cas’ voice grated through the speaker, “the ghost was here. Get up here now.”

“What?”

“The gho--”

“That’s impossible, it’s out here.”

“Dean, it’s back.”

“Shit.” He hung up, shoving the phone into his pocket. He turned back to the house and there it was again, on the porch this time: skin and dress as white as bone, dark hair, with some kind of gauze trailing behind it, fluttering in an unfelt breeze. He ran forward, thundering up the wooden steps. But just as he raised the tire iron again, she blinked out of existence, and the front door opened.

It was Cas. His eyes darted to Dean’s raised arm, then back to Dean’s face. He didn’t move.

“Dean,” he said, as though Dean didn’t have a blunt instrument poised above his head. “Are you okay?”

“What?” Dean asked, lowering his arm.

“You said the ghost was out here.”

“You said she was up there!”

“She was,” Cas said, frowning, looking behind Dean, into the now-empty yard. “She came to the window several times.” He tugged on Dean’s arm. “Come inside.”

They crept slowly upstairs. “Why aren’t you armed?” Dean hissed. “What if Sam needed backup?” Part of his mind screeched the same question at him, adding _how can_ you _back him up when you’re sitting out in the car like some emo loser douchebag,_ but he ignored it.

Cas looked back over his shoulder. “I’m armed.”

“Angel blades don’t work on ghosts, Cas.”

Cas’ answering eye roll was thunderous.  He half-turned on the step, and took his hand out of his pocket.

“Brass knuckles?”

“Cast iron.”

“Where’d you get those?”

“An antiques dealer in Mississippi.” He paused, cocking his head like a listening bird, then continued on into the hallway. “I’d say it was fate if I didn’t know your opinion on the subject.” He didn’t look at Dean as he said: “That was unwise, Dean. Next time, just tell me to go.” Cas pushed the door open and walked into the room. The roar in Dean’s head practically drowned out Cas’ query. “Anything?”

Sam shook his head from his spot near the window. The rime of ice was beginning to melt away and the heavy warmth was returning. “Nothing.” He turned to look at them. “She just vanished.”

“She pulled a T-Rex move on me in the car,” Dean said, feeling the need to sit down all of a sudden. The bed sagged under his weight.

Sam frowned. “That was…”

“Stupid, yeah, I know. Cas already said.”

Sam nodded, then looked back at the frost-free window. Suddenly his shoulders stiffened. “Crap.”

“What? Is it back?” Dean stood.

“No,” Sam said, crossing the room in two strides, “We forgot Alec and Zack.”

He was only gone a moment, though, before he walked back into the room with a strange look on his face.

“Problem?” Dean asked.

“Yeah, they’re fine. They’re...fine.”

“They’re having sex,” Cas said, as he removed the iron knuckles from his hand.

“ _What_? Wait, is that what you were listening to in the hall?”

“It was impossible not to hear them, Dean.” He turned his head. “They’ve finished.”

“Dude, _stop_.”

“Alright,” Cas said, in a way that meant what he was agreeing to wasn’t actually possible. He looked around the room. “The heat signature in the house, and for the area within the salt lines, seems normal now. I think the ghost may be gone for the moment.”

“Uh, yeah,” Sam said, shaking his head, as if to clear it from a stray thought. “That’s good. And we got a pretty good look at her, too.”

“Yeah,” Dean agreed. “Young woman in a white dress, wearing some kind of shroud. Just like Alec said.”

“No, Dean,” Sam said gravely, “She wasn’t wearing a _white_ dress. She was wearing a _wedding dress_. That wasn’t a shroud, it was a _veil_.”

****

If Zack was surprised to hear that another person had showed up at his home in the middle of the night, he gave no indication. Of course, he had a dazed and dreamy expression that Dean immediately recognized as the _just got laid on the DL, holy god did I need that_ look, having worn it more than once himself. Well, that explained some yesterday’s weird tension, he guessed.

It was doubtful if much was going to get through to him for the next few hours, but Sam apparently felt the need to explain anyway. “Jody’s never met Cas, but he’s a good guy. He was in the neighborhood and I thought, ‘hey, all hands on deck', right?"

“Sure,” Zack said, smiling vaguely into his orange juice.

“I mean,” Sam continued, ignoring Dean’s pointed ‘shut-up-Sam’ look. “He’s kind of new to the whole hunting thing, but he, uh, he’s the kind of guy you definitely want at your back. Nobody gets the drop on him, you know? A pro in combat situations.”

“Ah. Ex-military, huh?” Zack asked amiably. “My dad was in the Air Force. I considered enlisting after high school, but...never mind.”

“Yeah,” Dean said, before Sam could respond. God, normally _Dean_ was the one rambling at this stage. _He must still feel bad about calling Cas here without telling me. Fine. Let him._ “Ex-military. He’s just come off a pretty long tour of duty.”

“And how,” Sam agreed, with a small uptick of his mouth.

Zack nodded. “I’ll have Alec make him some pancakes.”

“Uh,” Dean said, clearing throat. “He’s not much of a...breakfast person. Just coffee. Strong. Lots of sugar.”

“Ah,” Zack said. “Like Alec, then.”

“Yeah,” Sam said slowly. “Listen, you, uh, didn’t call for us last night. Does that mean that you didn’t see the ghost?”

“Oh, um.” Zack drank the remainder of his orange juice in one long gulp. “No, actually. Thank the Lord. Not a sign of her all night. I _swear_ we saw her before though. I’d never lie about something like this.”

“Woah, hey, yeah, don’t worry, we believe you,” Sam said. “We saw her.”

“Yeah,” Dean said, pouring a mug of coffee. “We got well-acquainted with your little Miss Havisham.” He stirred in three spoonfuls of sugar.

“Miss Havisham?”

“Dean reads,” Sam said quickly. “Oh. I mean, heh, yeah, turns out your woman in white is actually a woman in a wedding dress.”

Dean saw Zack’s eyes widen at that, but he was already climbing the stairs and didn’t hear the rest of the exchange. Cas had agreed to stay in the bedroom until they had alerted Zack to his presence. He didn’t bother knocking. Cas sat on the edge of the bed, idly looking through Dean’s duffle bag of clothes and supplies.

He held up a small clay amphora of holy oil, wrapped in a plastic bag. Damascus by way of Kroger’s. “Sam said this has been useful in curing those afflicted by the Darkness.”

“Yeah, it’s been a--” The word _god-send_ died in his throat. “It’s useful.” He crossed the room and handed Cas the coffee mug.

“Sorry I can’t get any more for you.” He rolled his shoulders. “Being grounded sucks.”

“Yeah,” Dean said, for lack of anything more eloquent. “Don’t worry about it. I, uh, I’m glad you got your car back.”

Cas smiled faintly. “Me too.” He considered the mug in his hands, but didn’t drink. “That’s why I was in Mississippi.”

“How’d your car end up there?”

Cas shrugged. “Metatron abandoned it. A woman near Biloxi bought it. Fortunately, there are casinos there.”

“You were _gambling_?” Something like anger pricked at Dean’s chest again, but he held it at bay. Sort of. “Seriously? Is that, is that really an appropriate use of your time?”

Cas looked startled, then guilty. “I needed money. She would only take cash.” He frowned a little, into the coffee he wasn’t drinking. “And I need my car if I’m to find Metatron and return him to Heaven. It’s the only way to regain Hannah’s trust.”

“Dude, we would have wired it to you. You could’ve asked.”

“I considered that,” Cas said, allaying several fears Dean didn’t realize he’d had. “It would have taken too long to clear. When Sam called, I wanted to get here as soon as I could.” He let out a sharp breath and finally looked at Dean. “So I went to the casinos and got the cash together. It wasn’t...I wasn’t shirking my duties, Dean. As soon as I had the five thousand dollars she wanted, I purchased the car and came here.”

“You won _five thousand dollars_ at the casino?” Dean asked, astonished.

“No. Almost six thousand. As well as several meal coupons, and tickets to see a group of blue men.”

“How long did that take?”

Cas considered. “Three hours. Roughly. They seemed relieved when I left.”

“Ha, I bet. That is some _Rain Man_ level work there,” Dean said, appreciatively. “What do you use? X-Ray vision or something?”

Cas narrowed his eyes as though Dean had uttered a curse. “I don’t _cheat_ , Dean. Poker is a game of strategy as much as chance. I’m just very good at it.”

Heavenly-strategist-turned-card-shark. Exactly the kind of guy you wanted for the big stakes. Plus, it seemed to be something Cas enjoyed, which was a rare enough thing. Rare things ought to be indulged. “We ought to take you to Vegas with us next time we go.”

Another startled look, this one subsumed by cool detachment, and Dean couldn’t guess the source of either reaction. His ability to read Cas had always been slightly slanted. Cas didn’t map cleanly onto the internal Emotions/Responses Grid that Dean had been using most of his life. _Well, that’s what you get when you’re basically dealing with an alien_ , Dean guessed.

Still, Dean had been there for the majority of Cas’ crash course—he winced internally at the poor phrasing—in humanity. He’d tried to cajole and coax and push him through the highs and lows, with admittedly varying degrees of compassion. But he’d been there, more or less. ( _Not_ _when it really mattered,_ and eerily familiar sing-song voice intoned in the back of his mind. _You let him figure that one out on his own._ ) He’d carved--he’d _guided_ Cas. Him and Sam.

Dean had become, if not fluent, then at least conversant in whatever emotional metric Cas used.

Now he felt like he was starting over again, trying to speak a foreign language after years of disuse.

In a sense, he was, he admitted miserably. For nearly two years Dean had been treading water, trying to keep the Mark from dragging him down and drowning him, and he hadn’t exactly succeeded. It had thrown a bloody pall over everything and everyone, even when he managed to keep it under control. It had distorted every interaction he’d had. A lot of times he hadn’t seen people so much as nails to be hammered: a witness who wouldn’t give info, a scumbag who needed a beatdown or a bullet, a friend who wouldn’t get out of his way.

And Cas was dying. The stolen grace had slowly poisoned him, like transplanted tissue attacking its host. Dean had kind of forgotten that, actually. Until just now.

“It’d be good to have you along, is all,” Dean said, looking down, after realizing that they’d both been sitting silently for the last few minutes.

He looked back up at Cas and was unsurprised to find himself being watched. Cas’ expression shifted again, to something open and intent.

 _Want_ was such a human word, for an emotion Cas wasn’t even supposed to be able to feel. Angels dealt in _need_ and _must_. But every time Dean had tried to speak that language, the message never stuck. He reminded himself that just because someone wasn’t supposed to feel something, didn’t mean that they didn’t.

_Worth another shot._

“Look, Cas. Nobody wants you around more than I do, okay?”

Cas drew back slightly, as though he were trying to get a better look at Dean’s face, and Dean fought down the urge to lower his eyes like a Bronze Age shepherd. He realized with a jolt that _Cas_ might well be having the same translation issues with _him_ , because his expression changed from searching to something else: a warm three-word phrase that Dean was almost positive he could translate, and so did not, usually. Usually. But the morning light was softly gold and the air smelled of orange blossoms, and somehow he’d moved until his calf was against Cas’, and Cas was pressing back slightly, and...

“And I’d rather be around,” Cas said. He looked as though he were forming his next words carefully, like a complicated incantation he couldn’t afford to mispronounce. He pressed closer to Dean and opened his mouth to speak again. “I’d rather be with you. I want...”

“Dean, Alec! Um. Cas! Come and get some breakfast!” Zack called from downstairs. The warm line of pressure against Dean’s leg retreated and Cas blinked as though he’d just woken up.

Zack was an extremely nice man, and Dean he knew shouldn’t wish him out into the cornfield. He really shouldn’t.

“Yeah, coming!” Dean shouted, louder than necessary. He dragged his hand across his face and stood, feeling troubled. Cas stood a moment later. Dean stalked out of the room and took two steps into the hallway before a surprised little “Oh! Uh…” made him turn around.

Alec had emerged from the bedroom, wearing a much more wrinkled iteration of the outfit he had gone to bed in. He and Cas stood regarding each other, both looking windswept and rumpled in their own way.

“Hello,” Alec said slowly.

“Hi,” Cas said.

“And you are?” Alec asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Castiel,” Cas said. Dean was hit with an extremely strong wave of deja vu and instinctively checked Alec’s hand for a knife. “Would you like some coffee?” Cas asked. He held out the untouched mug. It still sent up curls of steam.

_Grace-powered Thermos. So that’s a thing._

Alec accepted it with a blank look. “Thank...you.”

“Cas is a friend of ours,” Dean said quickly, before another staring contest could begin. “Just back from a tour in the military. He came to lend a hand, since, y’know, it’s not your typical woman in white scenario. You can always use another good hunter on a difficult case, right?” Man, now he _was_ rambling.  “Anyway, breakfast is ready! Most important meal of the day, right? Wouldn’t wanna miss it. Come on, Cas.”

He hadn’t missed the subtle start of surprise when he referred to Cas as ‘a good hunter’, but Cas said nothing and obediently followed behind, with Alec forming the tail of their slightly shambolic parade.

“Hey, this coffee’s pretty good,” Alec said appreciatively, as they descended the stairs. “Where were you stationed?”

“I...in the desert, mostly.” He looked at Dean, as though for guidance. “Though more recently...”

“Cas can’t really disclose much about his missions. Can you?”

“No, I...much of it is...classified.”

“Classified, huh?” Alec asked. “Intriguing.” He seemed to be in a dizzyingly good mood, insofar as he was able. Well. No surprises there. “So, I’m noticing a theme. Do all hunters earn extra cash by being underwear models?”

“I’ve never modelled underwear in my life. I prefer seven-card stud.” He paused, then said: “Sam and Dean make their money primarily through fraud.”

They reached the kitchen just as Cas made his pronouncement. Sam and Zack looked up, both blinking in surprise at his words. Behind him, Alec laughed quietly.

 _Did he just troll me?_ Dean asked himself, incredulous. He looked at Cas, whose face was a careful, complete blank, the way it hadn’t been in years. _I think the fucker just trolled me._

“You said something about breakfast?” Dean asked, clearing his throat.

“Yeah,” Zack said, nodding quickly. He caught Alec’s eye and blushed slightly. “There’s toast, leftover chicken salad. Sorry, it’s not much.” He seemed embarrassed. “I made fresh orange juice, though.” He held up the pitcher like a peace offering.

“That sounds wonderful, Zack,” Alec said, and he was genuinely beaming, bright blue eyes and a slightly lopsided smile that caused something in Dean’s chest to flutter like a trapped bird in recognition.

“Yeah,” he said, looking at his hands. “Awesome. Let’s eat!”

“Then I need you to drop me off at the library,” Sam said, taking a bite of toast. “We need to look up old marriage licences issued in the area. We—wow, this is good, Zack, did you _make_ this?—we think the wedding veil our ghost is wearing looks to be circa 1920 or 1930.”

“Very _Downton_ ,” Zack said with a nod. He was leaning against Alec slightly. “That beading, those orange blossoms. I don’t know how I didn’t notice before.”

“You were probably screaming in abject terror,” Cas pointed out. “Human beings are fairly unobservant when they do that, in my experience.” He had somehow procured another cup of coffee. This time, he took a sip.

****

“Ida Mae Crawford,” Sam said, sliding into the back seat. He’d instinctively gone for shotgun, but hadn’t even blinked when he saw Cas sitting there. He handed Cas the stack of printouts, and accepted some sort of beansprout and spicy kale wrap in return. Apparently even no-horse towns had organic cafes. Rednecks these days. Still, that burger had been pretty decent. “Married Sumner Pierce in the spring of 1926 at the age of 19.” Cas studied the topmost piece of paper, a grainy sepia image of a familiar young woman with a delicately-boned face and wide eyes. She looked very childlike, Dean thought. She wore a veil topped by a froth of small white flowers, and stood next to a tall man with a serious face.

“Cause of death?” Dean asked, as they pulled onto the road out of town.

Sam shook his head and swallowed another mouthful of...whatever it was. “None on record. Get this: she disappeared on her wedding day. They never found her.”

“Ouch.”

“The husband?” Cas asked, rifling through the rest of the papers.

“I don’t think he was involved,” Sam said. “He lost it when she disappeared. Apparently they worshipped each other. She was from a much poorer family and the Pierces, uh, took some convincing before they agreed.”

“A love match,” Cas said, and his voice was like a shot of whiskey in Dean’s throat.

“Seems like,” Sam agreed.

“A rare thing,” Cas observed. Dean’s fingers twitched slightly on the wheel.

“So why’d she end up pulling a _Gone Girl_ on the day she got hitched,” Dean asked, “if they were so head-over-heels for each other?”

“According to the newspaper report, they played a game of hide-and-seek after the wedding breakfast. I guess it was a family tradition? You know, if he finds her, he’s destined to be in charge of the marriage. If she stays hidden the whole two hours, she’s wearing the pants.”

“Kinky,” Dean said gruffly. “So she stashes herself somewhere…”

“And they looked for days,” Sam finished. “Nothing.”

“The place isn’t that big,” Dean said.

“Not any more. But back then it was almost two hundred acres, with a dozen outbuildings. Stables, coach house, even a clock tower.”

“All that’s left seems to be the barn you mentioned,” Cas said.

“I’d say that’s our next order of business,” Dean said, looking over at him. He was still studying Sam’s paperwork intently.

“What I don’t understand,” Cas said, as he looked again at the photograph, “is why she appeared to us last night, but not to Zack and Alec.” He looked up. “Or perhaps they just didn’t notice her because they were having sex. It _can_ be very distracting.”

“Uh,” Dean said, catching Sam’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Yeah, that it can. I...I don’t know, Cas. Maybe it’s a fluke.”

Cas shook his head, looking thoughtful. “Ghosts may be driven by emotion, but they’re extremely regimented in their logic. It’s highly unlikely it was a fluke. There’s a pattern here. We’re just not seeing it yet.”

“Yeah,” Sam said, distantly. “Just not seeing it yet.”

****

Cas hadn’t asked again to heal him. Before he’d left the Bunker, he still had that thousand-yard stare you saw sometimes in people who ran towards gunfire for a living. He’d managed to whittle it down to a hundred yards by the night he walked out the door, but Dean suspected that was primarily for his benefit. Cas moved as though every particle of him hurt and it was only through sheer force of will that he held his back straight.

All they got was a note on the table, under a red-rimmed coffee cup.

 

**Sam, Dean:**

**We need information on the Darkness.**

**Will report back with what I find.**

**~~I wanted~~ **

**I needed shelter and you gave it.**

**Thank you.**

                          **-C**

Dean crushed the paper in his hand, then smoothed it out again. “What the hell’s he thinking? The guy’s held together by Scotch tape and gum at this point, Sam!”

“I noticed,” Sam said. He face was very grim. “But he’s done harder things in worse shape.”        

“Yeah, he’s the Timex Watch of angels, I get it. He’s still really frigging messed up.”

“Oh, and you’re not?” Sam asked, gesturing towards the wine colored bruises mottling Dean’s face.

“I’m...It’s nothing a little sleep and Ibuprofen won’t fix,” Dean said defensively.

“Right,” Sam said, in the way that meant he thought Dean was an idiot. “Sure, Dean. But why make him suffer?”

“What?”

“It bothered him to know he did that to you, Dean. You know it did. He kept asking me why you wouldn’t let him heal you.” Sam paused, and a cold realization filled his eyes. He looked at Dean closely. “Were you punishing him?”

“What? _No_. Not him.”

“Wait, what?” Sam blinked. That was clearly not the response he’d expected.

“Nothing.” Dean said, looking away. “But I wasn’t punishing him, alright? He knows that.”

“Did he take a car, at least?” Sam asked, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Dean shook his head. “No, I checked. I doubt he’d want us tracing the plates.”

“Money?”

“I...gave him some yesterday. In case we got pulled out on a case while he was recovering.”

“What would he possibly need to buy?” Sam wondered. “He doesn’t eat, doesn’t have a car to fill up.”

Dean shrugged, a hot, bitter sensation surging through him. “I just..I didn’t want him to be stuck with nothing. Safety net, you know, just in case.”

“How much?”

“I dunno, a hundred? Whatever I had in my room.”

“That’d buy a few bus tickets.”

“Yeah.”

They were silent a few moments, looking down at the crumpled note. Dean heard Sam breathe in, as though to speak, but he said nothing. He did it again. Dean narrowed his eyes in Sam’s direction.

“What is it, Sam?”

“Dean, he…” Sam took another breath before continuing. “He asked me something.”

 _Oh god, that’s a phrase that never heralds glad tidings_.

“What?”

“He said he...he said his vessel was fine but his grace was, uh...what was it? Like he’d been put in a blender.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

“He said he didn’t know if the damage would heal.”

“ _What_?”

“He thinks it will!” Sam amended hastily. “But he said he couldn’t be one hundred percent certain. He was, like, ninety-nine percent sure.”

“What did he ask you?” Dean asked, gripping the mug that Cas had left behind.

“He said…” Sam cleared his throat, then plowed ahead. “He said, that if it came to it, if he couldn’t get better, he wanted me to take him out and then give him a hunter’s funeral. So that no one could use his vessel in order to get close to us. Apparently, it weighed on his mind a lot last year.”

The mug broke in Dean’s hands, falling in three neat pieces to the floor, where it shattered.

A text arrived a week later, as they drove towards Missouri at the behest of Dean’s ‘early warning system’.

**There are more sealed records in the Archives than I anticipated. Don’t know why I’m surprised, given the Heavenly propensity for sealing things.**

“I need you to drive, Sam.” Dean pulled over to the side of the road and didn’t even wait for Sam’s answer.

Dean climbed into the passenger’s seat. He considered for a long moment before writing: _Yeah well. Start at the Beginning and go from there_

**:)**

**Your advice is excellent as always Dean**

_Yeah i’m a regular Ann Landers_

_You there?_

_That’s a no_

_(Come home,_ he typed, and deleted, seven times. _Let us help you get better,_ three times _. Let me help you,_ twelve times. _I need_ , just once.)

**My records are there, Dean. All of them.**

_Don’t look._

**Without temptation there is no sin**

_Castiel_

_Don’t do that to yourself, man_

_Where are you? I know there’s no cell reception in Heaven_

**Colorado. I’m fine.**

_Yeah, as fine as I am._

**:(**

**I will bring you good news, Dean. I promise.**

_I don’t want news, I want you here, you dumbass_ , Dean thought. Instead he typed:

_OK_

_Speak soon._  

****

“Are you going to ask him to come home?” Sam asked, peering around the corner of the barn door, where it sagged open slightly. Distantly, Dean could hear the sound of Cas opening and closing the doors of his car as he attempted to undo several months’ worth of neglect. Metatron was such a dick.

“What?”

“Cas. Are you going to…”

“It’s not his home,” Dean said crossly. They both shoved hard with their shoulders and the doors moaned open. Dean held up a lantern.

“ _Dean_ ,” Sam said. He looked as though Dean had slapped him.

“I mean, if it was, he wouldn’t keep fucking leaving all the time.” He peered into the mildewy dark.

Sam cracked his neck. “It’s what we do.”

“What?” Dean asked again. He seemed to be asking that a lot lately.

“We get a lead, we go. We don’t ask permission. We just leave.”

 _Okay, fair point_. But: “For weeks and months at a time?”

“You really think an _angel_ uses the same timescale as us? Maybe he doesn't think he's gone that long.” The open door spilled brilliant sunlight across the floor, but the overall gloom hardly lessened. “I’m just saying, Dean. Maybe he’s doing what he believes he’s supposed to be doing. Acting like one of us. Maybe he doesn’t realize that…” Sam sneezed, six times in quick succession. “Damn it! Watch out for brown recluses, by the way. Make sure your cuffs are buttoned.” He wiped his eyes.

“Maybe,” Dean said doubtfully. “But what about last year? You know, when, uh…” He couldn’t finish the thought.

“I asked him to stay. I did. But he was worried about distracting me.” Sam’s face twisted at the memory. “I think he didn’t want me to see how bad he was getting. I should have insisted but, well, I didn’t. That’s on me.” He sighed. “And then later, he went on some rogue angel hunt with Hannah, apparently.”

They’d reached the back of the barn. It looked like it hadn’t been touched in at least 50 years. The darkness seemed to move, though Dean knew that was just his eyes playing tricks. There was no sign of the ghost.

“Anyway, Dean. Most of the time, I think he’s doing what he thinks we would do. He gets called and he goes. And I mean, he’s an angel. He _needs_ a mission. It’s the way he’s wired.”

Dean stumbled over a stray bit of wood, and Sam caught him by the shoulder. It didn’t seem to stop his train of thought, however.

“But I’m starting to realize he doesn’t understand that _we_ don’t need him to have a mission,” he said, steadying Dean. “I mean, does he know you’d like him around, just because?”

“He knows.”

“Maybe you need to actually _say_ something. With words.”

“Why me?”

Dean didn’t need a light to read the look his brother was giving him. It seemed to turn the air subtly cooler.

“Look, just...tell him. Okay?” Sam began hammering at a cupboard with the butt of the shotgun. It splintered on the second hit. Inside there were a row of rusted knives and hooks hanging from the wall. Some had fallen to the ground as the wood rotted away.

“ _American Gothic_ meets _American Psycho_ ,” Dean said. “Nice.”

Sam shrugged at Dean’s attempt at a joke. He wouldn’t drop it. “Look, just...promise me you’ll tell him you want him to come home, Dean. Make sure he _gets it_.”

Dean shook his head, seized by a strange despair. He almost felt as if someone had died. “Sam, look, I can’t…”

A gust of Arctic wind seemed to come out of nowhere, slamming the barn doors closed. Dean felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

“Shit! Where is she?” Sam asked, immediately going back-to-back with Dean and raising the shotgun.

“I don’t know!”

The barn now had the ambient temperature of a meat locker, and the old roof groaned alarmingly from the sudden contraction.

 _No, wait_ , Dean thought, holding his breath. _That’s the doors. It’s…_

The doors blew inward, coming halfway off their hinges from the violence of the force.

“Cas?” Dean asked. The hair on the back of neck stood on end once more, but this time it wasn’t from fear. Cas strode into the barn like he was walking into battle, and, if there had been a working light in the place, Dean knew for a fact they would have exploded in a shower of sparks.

“Dean, Sam, are you…”

The ghost appeared at Sam’s side, shoving him hard enough to send him sprawling several feet away. Dean swung the iron, but she had already dematerialized.

“Dean, behind you!” Cas shouted, rushing forward. But it was too late. Dean felt something impossibly cold at his back, and he knew he was done for. His vision whited out for a moment.

He blinked back to consciousness in Cas’ arms, staring up at his shocked face.

“Did I die? Did you bring me back?”

“No, you didn’t die. She...shoved you into me.”

Dean fought for his balance. Around them, the barn began to shudder and groan as though it had just gained sentience and was angry about it.

“What’s going on?” Cas asked, clutching Dean tighter.

A trestle beam fell somewhere in the back, a world-ending crash.

“Is she doing this?” Dean asked.

Sam regained his feet. He lurched a little, holding his arm. “Kiss him, for fuck’s sake!”

“ _What_?” Dean and Cas asked, in baffled unison. A large piece of equipment fell with a clang.

“Kiss. Him!” Sam shouted, staggering against the wind. “Just do it!”

“Sam, what…”

“Do it or I’ll kill you myself, Dean!”

In the end, it wasn’t even up to Dean. He felt a hand grab and twist at his shirt front, and another pull him forward by the hip. Suddenly Cas’ mouth was on his, firm and sure, a point of shocking heat against the unnatural chill of the barn. Dean felt it down to the soles of his feet.

The wind died, and the cold retreated, as though neither had been there at all.

“Ugh, thank _god_ ,” he heard Sam say, from a long way away.

Cas pulled away slightly, and Dean felt as though every thought had been washed out of his head.

“Uh,” he said, eloquently.

“Yes,” Cas said, matching him.

“We...uh, we…”

“Yes.”

“Anyway, don’t mind me! I found our little friend,” Sam called with overly-forceful airiness. Dean had perhaps one functioning brain cell left, and it shuddered to life as he took in what Sam meant. Dean turned hazily towards his voice.

The trestle had landed on a series of crates and an old wooden steamer trunk. The lids had smashed into tiny pieces of splintered shrapnel. Most appeared to be empty. The steamer trunk, however, held a small skeleton, swathed in yellowed, decaying silk and tangled in yards of netting. About the head there still clung one or two blackened flowers.

Cas pulled away completely, but kept his hand on the small of Dean’s back. The cast iron knuckles he wore dug in slightly. “She must have suffocated within an hour,” he said sombrely.

“I bet she thought she could open it from the inside,” Sam said. He looked sadder than he usually did in moments like this.

“We can’t burn her in here,” Dean said, hating how ragged his voice sounded. “Whole place’d go up.”

“You’re right,” Cas agreed. He removed the knuckles and slipped them into his pocket. “We should take her to where her husband is buried. I think they’ve waited long enough for each other.”

“I’ll handle it,” Sam said. “I know where the plot is.”

“But Sam,” Cas began.

“Nope,” Sam said, waving them off. “It took me getting tackled by the ghost of a fucking _pining woman_ to get you two to finally kiss. Go somewhere and do that for a while. Leave me in peace.”

Dean opened his mouth and found, to his surprise, that no protest emerged.

“Right,” Cas said. Dean saw his throat work around unvoiced words for a moment. “Dean?” His eyes were very wide in the half light. He looked…uncertain? Frightened? Dean wasn’t sure, but he was suddenly gripped by the need to correct whatever translation Cas was writing out in his head. He nodded, grabbing Cas’ hand and pulling him out into the sunlight.

As soon as they were out of sight, Dean pushed him against the side of the house.

“Dean?” Cas tried again, still uncertain.

This time, it _was_ up to Dean. “I didn’t get a chance to do it right.” That was all the warning Cas got before Dean kissed him, pouring out all the longing and hope and frustration he felt in the push and slide of his mouth, his tongue.  It lasted until Dean suddenly remembered to come up for air.

Cas blinked, slightly dazed. Dean instantly knew he wanted to see that look every day for the rest of his life.  His mind helpfully began compiling a list of how this might be accomplished.

“What does that mean?” Cas asked, breathlessly.

“It means,” Dean said, resting his head against Cas’ shoulder, thinking of the word an angel would respond to best, “yes.” He kissed Cas’ neck. “Yes. Come home. I _want you to stay_. We’ll find Metatron. We’ll get you back in Hannah’s good books. We’ll burn away the Darkness. We’ll do all of it. But come home to me, _please_.” He took in a ragged breath and made himself meet Cas’ eyes. “Okay? Do you understand?”

Cas brought his arms around him, at last, and Dean felt a surge of grace move through him, practically singing with relief and happiness. A joyful noise, indeed. It matched his own feelings, note for note.

“I understand.”

“Good,” Dean said. “Good.”

****  
“They seemed nice,” Alec observed, leaning against Zack as they stood watching the two cars disappear down the drive. “I caught Dean making out with his ex-soldier 'friend' before they left.”

“Good,” Zack said. “They both looked like they were starving for it.”

“Heh,” Alec said, hooking his chin over Zack’s shoulder. “You’d know, huh?”

“ _You’d_ know.”

“Yeah, I would.”                                                                                             

“I think this will be a good place, after all,” Zack said softly. “But...you’re going back to Sioux Falls soon and...”

“Hey,” Alec kissed him quiet. “You think I’m going to just give up after ten years of waiting? After you finally got out of Linda’s claws? Come _on_. Have a little faith. We’ll think of something.”

Zack grinned at him. “You’re right. We always do.”

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a variation of the old English folktale [The Mistletoe Bride](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_the_Mistletoe_Bough) or The Mistletoe Bough. I've given it a rural Florida twist, because rural Florida can be damn creepy.  
> Orange blossoms were traditionally the bridal flower of choice. They represent purity and good fortune, and they're the state flower of Florida. Plus, they smell _astonishingly_ good. 
> 
> As you can tell, I altered certain events from S11. (Hannah lives, damn it.) Hopefully they still have an emotional impact. I also hope you liked Alec and Zack. I'm always wary of adding original characters, but I quite enjoyed writing them. :)
> 
> Oh yeah! The signs I mentioned. [Fruit 'n' fireworks.](http://c8.alamy.com/comp/C4BNYG/florida-palm-coast-us-route-1-dixie-highway-roadside-stand-signs-wholesale-C4BNYG.jpg) What could go wrong?
> 
> And poor Sam. You had it figured out a long time ago, didn't you?


End file.
